Curls of Smoke
by voxophone
Summary: Orochimaru finds a different way to gain a body with the Sharingan. It doesn't turn out the way he expected. [Self-Insert fic, cross-posted from AO3.]
1. Prologue

Death was very different from what he'd imagined. It should have been nothingness, a complete lack of awareness. But it wasn't.

Death was warmth all around him, wrapping around him like a blanket. Sometimes he heard muffled sounds but he couldn't make out if they were words or just a soft humming. If he had eyes, he couldn't get them to open, so he saw nothing but darkness. But while he couldn't see the space around him, he could move within it. It wasn't easy. Every small movement of his limbs felt like wading through thick syrup and moving around tired him out quickly.

Actually getting anywhwere was impossible. For some reason, death had _walls._ It didn't make much sense, but who was he to decide what death should be like?

Obviously, his previous assumptions had been wrong.

 _'I always thought death would be like disappearing into nothingness, but I thought that I would become a part of it and slip away forever. But I'm still here.'_

Maybe it should have scared him, but defining what he was thinking and feeling took a lot of effort and he kept losing his train of thought. When he was awake, he was always on the brink of falling asleep again.

It was peaceful, but very strange. He wasn't upset about being dead. Sometimes, he felt a surge of longing for the people he had left behind, but the feelings ebbed out when he inevitably fell back into a slumber.

Death wasn't what he had expected at all, but it could have been a lot worse.

One, day it ended.

Without warning, the walls started closing in around him. He was going to be crushed if it didn't stop, and it _shouldn't matter_ because he was already _dead_ , but it _hurt unlike anything he'd ever felt before_. The warm coccoon around him was supposed to be _safe._ It shouldn't be trying to harm him.

Struggling against it didn't help, but he tried to anyway. Panic had set in. All he wanted to do was to get out of there, and get out fast. But that didn't happen. The walls kept squeezing him and there was nothing he could do about it. It felt like it was never going to end. At some point, he gave up on trying to make it stop and just focused on slowing his heartbeat.

Then suddenly, the warmth was gone. He wasn't being squeezed anymore. The pain hadn't faded yet, but the worst seemed to be over. Slowly he opened his eyes, but everything was blurry and dark.

What the hell was happening?

Something warm was wrapped around him again, but it had the wrong texture.

Someone lifted him and held him in their arms as if he was a tiny child. That really didn't make any sense. He'd been pretty tall not so long ago. And why was another person there? So far death had been a solitary experience. The other person had gotten to keep their regular size too. Unfair.

He opened his eyes again to get a look at the person. His sight was still blurry but he could make out the contrast between a pale face and dark hair. He wished he had his glasses.

Then the person spoke, and he recognized the voice. It was the same muffled humming he'd heard before, inside the warm cocoon. The woman (and he was pretty sure she was a woman now that he'd heard her speak) had a raspy voice. She sounded tired. He still didn't understand what she was saying, but he recognized the language. She was speaking Japanese.

He could only understand a few words of the language, not nearly enough to communicate. But maybe she would understand him if he spoke English? It was worth a try. He opened his mouth to ask her what was going on, but only a gurgle came out. He tried again. And again.

That's when it clicked.

He couldn't speak. He was tiny. He was...he was a newborn child.

All this time he'd thought he was dead, when really, he'd been inside the womb of the woman currently holding him in her arms. It finally made sense, but at the same time it didn't.

It was so weird. Surreal, even. _Reincarnation was a thing._

He was torn between fear and curiousity. Was this really happening?

The woman held him closer to her chest and lay down on the ground. She was shivering and he wished he could help her. The birth had been horryfing from his end but it had probably been worse for her. And they seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Alone. That wasn't exactly a good sign.

He tried to keep his eyes open, but he was getting tired again. Maybe this would make more sense when he woke up again.


	2. Chapter 1

Haruka lay back on the ground. Sitting up had been excruciating, but she'd had to do it anyway to be able to reach the baby. She had it in her arms now, or well, she was holding it to her chest with her right arm. The kunai lodged in her left shoulder made her other arm next to useless. Trying to move it only sent sharp twinges of pain through her body.

Speaking of kunai, she needed something to cut the umbilical cord. That had to be done before she collapsed.

It took her a lot of effort but Haruka managed to shuffle closer to the corpse lying next to her and open the weapons pouch on his thigh. Only three kunai were left, which was unsurprising considering the amount of kunai he'd thrown at her. Damn bastard was responsible for the kunai stuck in her shoulder. Haruka glared at the dead Iwa nin and felt a wave of pure rage wash over her, despite his death at her hands. Fucker. That wound would slow her down. If she could, she'd kill him again, and draw it out to cause him as much pain as possible.

Right, _kunai, umbilical cord._ Anger would have to come later, there was no time for it now. She had a task to complete. Haruka took a deep breath and grabbed the kunai. Holding it made her hand shake and she almost forgot what she was doing again, too preoccuiped with keeping herself awake. With the last of her strength, Haruka steadied herself and cut the umbilical cord. After that she was too drained to do more than collapse on the ground.

Before her eyes slid close, a wave of panic washed over her. She needed to move. She needed to...

Haruka slept like the dead but woke up very much alive. In daylight, the scene before her looked out of place. Birds were chirping, the sun was shining down on her from a clear, cloudless sky, and the two Iwa nin that she'd killed were splayed out next to her, one with a broken neck and the other with a stab wound to the throat.

She didn't know what part of that image she felt so detached from, but Haruka couldn't shake the sense of unreality that looking at it invoked in her. Maybe it was because she hadn't been outside for so long. Maybe it was because her eyes could barely adjust to the sunlight after months of staying closed behind a blindfold.

Lingering on it wasn't worth it, though. She needed to get up and start moving. Haruka had no idea where she was exactly, aside from the fact that she was in Earth Country and that she wasn't close to Iwagakure itself. She hadn't known that until her escape, but from the outside of the facility it had been obvious; the lack of other infrastructure around it was a dead giveaway. But she didn't know how big of a distance there was between the base and Iwa. She'd ran south only because that was the general direction to the border, but if the facility had been north of the hidden village, she still had to go past it. If she was lucky, one of the Iwa nin had a convenient map for her to steal a peak at.

More importantly, she had to _get up from the ground._ Her trousers were still pulled down to her ankles and she felt gross lying in a pool of blood and gunk left from giving birth. Ugh. She was never doing _that_ again. Just no. Someone else could bring new life to the world, Haruka was done with it.

Sitting up was just as painful as it had been the night before but Haruka grit her teeth and slowly pushed herself into an upright position. She put the baby down on the ground, careful not to harm it. She'd wrapped the baby in a flak jacket stolen from one of her dead enemies earlier, so it shouldn't get cold.

The baby was awake and gazed at her with curious, black eyes, the same shade as hers. That was it's only real resemblance to her. The paper-white skin and strange, purple markings around its eyes made the baby look eerily similar to its father.

 _'I wonder if he'll step up and help me raise the kid or if I'll have to do it on my own. Shit, the clan will be pissed off that I had his kid_ at all _, even if it was an accident. I'd say that the pregnancy was caused by the enemy to save myself from the shame, but that's such an obvious lie. One look at the baby is enough to reveal the truth.'_

But those were concerns for later. First, she had to get out of enemy territory.

The baby didn't look distressed so Haruka turned away from it, pulled up her trousers (which was icky because she was still bleeding down there and everything was torn up) and crawled to the closest corpse to check if he had medical supplies or a map with him. Sadly, after checking all his pouches, all she came up with aside from the kunai she'd already found were a few measly bandages and some senbon. The bandages were good, but not enough to patch up her wound. Right now, the kunai was the only thing protecting her from blood loss. If she pulled it out without being able to put pressure on it and stitch the wound close, she'd be screwed.

The second corpse had more kunai, but nothing else she could use. Not even a needle and thread! How did they mend their stuff in the middle of a mission without that? At least they had six ration bars betweeen them, but if they'd had to track her for an extended period of time that wouldn't have been enough. Haruka had saved them from having to deal with the consequences of their poor logistics by killing them. Maybe she'd done Iwa a favour by getting rid of them.

Haruka gathered her stolen supplies and two of the pouches they'd been in and sighed. She'd need to get help with treating her wound. Without the proper medical supplies it was too dangerous to do anything about it on her own. She'd just have to keep walking south until she reached a settlement and manipulate someone into helping her. It probably wouldn't be that difficult either, she was a petite woman with a newborn child, it practically screamed victim. Civilians were less suspicious than shinobi too, so really it would be child's play unless she messed it up.

Haruka ate one of the ration bars, and after taking the last bite, realized that she hadn't fed the baby yet. She lifted it gently into her arms and opened her kimono so it could reach her breast. After that was done, her most difficult task began. Standing up. It took her three tries (and wasn't that embarrasing for a woman who was used to running at the speed of a wild cat) to get up from the ground. She almost droppped the baby twice, and by the time she was standing on wobbly legs she was breathing heavily and covered in a thin sheet of sweat.

Haruka took a step forward and then another one. She wondered if more shinobi had been dispatched after the five men she'd killed hadn't reported back, but if there were, they hadn't caught up with her yet. She wasn't that far from where she'd started, so if those five were everyone who'd been stationed at the small facility, nobody would miss them until they were scheduled to report back. Haruka certainly hoped so. She wasn't in any shape to fight, not that she had been when she made her daring escape either. The fact that she was still alive was nothing short of a miracle.

…

Haruka didn't reach any signs of civilization until half a day into her journey. And really, calling it civilization was kind, it was only two small farmhouses. She stopped and watched from a distance while she decided how to make her move. To make sure she didn't miss anything, she activated her Sharingan to look for potential threats. Only two chakra signatures big enough to be human popped up, and neither of them were big enough to be a ninja, unless they were suppressing their signatures. One of them was hidden inside the bigger house to the left, but the other one was in her direct line of sight. It was a chubby, dark-haired woman and she was feeding chickens. So, definitely not a threat. Approaching these people for help would probably work out.

Despite that, Haruka felt nervous. She hadn't had a chance to hone her skills while in captivity, and if she was rusty she might get herself killed.

She took off the weapon pouches and hid it in a bush. She stayed there, bent down, and took a deep breath. This would hurt. She balanced the baby on her thighs, keeping it secure with chakra, and with her right arm free, pulled the kunai from her shoulder. It hurt like hell, and the blood gushing out of the wound set off her alarm bells even if she'd known that would happen. Haruka threw the kunai out of her sight and took the baby back into her arms. She needed to move fast now before she lost too much blood.

By the time she reached the farmhouses, tears were running down her face and she was breathing in short, ragged breaths.

"Please, you have to help me!" she called out, once she was close enough for anyone to hear her. She had to call out again for them to react, but when she finally did, it caught the attention of the second person too, and she came running out of the house, front door slamming shut behind her.

"Oh dear, what happened?" the woman with the dark hair said. She'd been the first to reach her.

"I...I...we were on out way to the next village because our midwife got sick, but on the way we were attacked by bandits. My husband...he...tried to hold them off but I don't know if he's still alive. I just ran." Haruka burst out crying.

Once she'd started, it felt like she wouldn't be able to stop. The reason she'd given for her tears was a lie, but the emotion behind them was suddenly _real._

 _All that time trapped alone inside a small room, a blindfold covering her eyes. That moment on the battlefield when she realized they had lost. She was kneeling on the ground, clutching her arm to her chest when the man bending down over her to finish the job suddenly stopped. He looked her in the eyes and smiled, then put a hand on her shoulder before turning to his subordinates "This is our lucky day! What do you think the Tsuchikage will say when he hand him a set of Sharingan eyes?" The fear she'd felt, more poignant than any feeling she'd ever had before. Reaching for her eyes with desperate fingers, scratching, but the man grabbed her hand and all she accomplished was a single, deep scratch at the corner of her eye._

"Calm down sweetie, come inside and sit down. Oh dear, are you injured? Let me look at that."

The woman's words brought Haruka out of her thoughts before they spun out of control. She nodded meekly, thankful that her anxiety only made her act more believable, and followed the two women inside. Both of them had the same build and hair color but the first one looked to be in her late fifties while the seecond one couldn't be much older than Haruka herself. She glanced at their faces and recognized similar features on both. They were probably related, most likely mother and daughter considering the age difference.

"Let me hold your baby," the younger woman said, once Haruka was seated at a rustic kitchen table. "Did it get hurt?"

Shit. She was supposed to be more concerned about that thing, wasn't she?

"I...I don't think so. Looks so much like my husband...I can't..." Haruka sniffled. But now that she thought about it, maybe the baby wasn't fine. It hadn't cried at all since its birth. That was probably a sign that something was wrong. "Maybe something _is_ wrong. My baby has been really quiet."

She clutched it to her chest protectively for a moment, before she handed it over.

"I'll look after your baby, so don't worry," the younger woman said and gave her a quick smile. It wasn't genuine, only meant to reassure her.

Haruka made her lip quiver and gave a shaky, barely noticable nod.

"Let me look at your shoulder, sweetie," the older woman said. She'd collected a first aid kit from somewhere while her daughter watched over Haruka and the baby.

"Oh dear. That looks deep. But I think I can stitch it up, so don't worry. What's your name dearie? I'm Yoko and my daughter over there is Saena," she said.

"My name is Suzume," Haruka said.

"Okay, Suzume-san, this is going to hurt a bit. I think it will be easier for you if you lie down on the couch," she sent Saena a look as she spoke, and she ran off to cover the couch with a sheet to keep it from getting bloody.

"How was your birth? Did anything get torn?"

"I haven't checked but it hurts," Haruka said. It hadn't stopped hurting after the birth was finally over, only lessened. Nobody had told her that would happen, but then again she hadn't asked anyone about it. She hadn't planned to get pregnant in the first place, so why bother?

"I'm not an expert, but I'll take a look once I've stitched up your shoulder," Yoko said.

Haruka lay back on the couch and tried to relax. It was surprisnly easy. Only Yoko and Saena's prescence kept her alert enough to keep her eyes open. The couch cushions were so soft...

They didn't have any pain medication on hand, but they gave her a piece of leather to bite down on. Haruka didn't really need it, she was desensitized to pain by now. She felt it, but reacting outwardly was optional. A shinobi career would do that to a person.

But broadcasting her kunoichi status would ruin her cover, so Haruka took on poor, terrified Suzume's persona. Suzume had never been in pain before, not like this, so she cried and groaned and twitched while Yoko stitched up her injury. Saena had taken the baby and left the room to give them some semblance of privacy.

"There's not much I can do about the damage here, but I can give you some thick pads for the bleeding," Yoko said after lowering her kimono. Haruka winced.

"I can try to wash your trousers, but they might be a lost cause," Yoko continued.

"Thank you, I'd appreciate that. And thank you for taking care of me and my baby, Yoko-san," Haruka said.

"Ah, you're welcome. Just try to rest now. Saena-chan will look after your baby while you sleep."

Yoko draped a blanket over her and left the room. It took a while for Haruka to fall asleep. She kept listening to Yoko and Saena's footsteps as they walked around the house, channeling chakra into her ears to eavesdrop on their conversation – as expected, they emphatized with her story and wanted to help her – but their lack of suspiscion did not translate to _safety._ If Iwa had found out about her escape, there'd be shinobi poking around any time now. Yoko's farmhouse was not a secure location.

But eventually, her exhaustion won out and Haruka fell asleep.

She left the next morning. Yoko and Saena gave her a care basket with food for the road and some of Saena's old baby clothes for the baby. They told her that the baby was fine, it had cried during the night when it needed a diaper change. Haruka thanked them for their help and went on her way.

She left in the direction of the village she'd given to the women as Suzume's hometown, but once she was sure they couldn't see her, she circled back to the bush where she'd hidden the collection of weapons and food rations she'd taken from the dead Iwa nin

She'd found out their approximate location from Yoko, who'd talked to Haruka to keep her calm while she patched her up. She'd mentioned the name of the closest village off-hand, and said that bandit groups were causing a lot of trouble near the border and that she wished she lived further up north where things were safer.

This was good, because it meant Haruka wouldn't have to go anywhere near Iwa on her way out of Earth Country. She finally had a mental map of where she was.

Her best option was to cross the border to Grass Country, and then into the Land of Fire. She had no idea how long the journey would take, she was so weak compared to what she'd been like before her capture.

(The pregnancy had taken its toll on her, but even worse was the complete lack of physical activity. Her cell had been too small for serious exercise and she was always kept blinfolded, chakra-inhibiting cuffs around her wrists.) Hopefully, she wouldn't get caught up in any battles. Rain and Grass were both war zones, caught between Konoha and Iwa, but going through Grass was the fastest way to get back home.

More than anything, Haruka wanted to be home. She knew more problems would arise as soon as she set foot in Konoha, but she couldn't help the childish part of her that reassured her that home would always be safe. Truly, nowhere ever was, but Konoha was the closest she'd ever get to it.

…

It took her an entire month to get to Grass country. The border between Earth and its neighboring countries was marked by a huge mountain range and it wasn't easy to cross unless you took one of the safe paths. But those were all under close guard. The border would be fortified too, with the war going on. Haruka's only good option was to make her own path, one so ill-advised nobody would think to guard it - but no so foolish that the journey itself would kill her.

On top of that, Haruka had to build up her stamina from scratch. She couldn't hold her usual pace at all and had to resort to _walking_ almost the entire way. She could barely sleep when she made camp at night, terrified that her enemies were closing in on her.

(Some nights she woke up screaming, clutching at her eyes. During the days, she felt empty and indifferent, but always bordering on tense. She knew not to touch that feeling. Whenever she did, the nightmares followed her into the daylight.)

The baby wasn't exactly helping. It had to be carried and that limited her mobility. At least it only made small distressed noises when it needed something instead of screaming like a hellion. It weirded her out, but Haruka's only exposure to babies before this had been babysitting her little cousins a few times. They'd been a lot louder.

Sometimes, Haruka had the sinking feeling that the kid was a lot more intelligent than it had any right to be. It looked like a small replica of its father so maybe it had inherited his genius as well. She didn't know if that was a good thing or not.

The only thing she was certain of was that it was slowing her down.

On an especially horrible day, when Haruka had been exhausted after yet another sleepless night, her muscles sore from walking and her face plastered by the falling rain, she'd considered smashing it with a rock. She'd never wanted the thing. If she didn't have to carry it, she'd get home faster.

Haruka had bent down to pick up a rock from the ground. She'd raised it. One second later, she broke down crying and threw the rock as far as she could. The baby was asleep, unaware of her depravity. _She'd almost killed it. It was just a baby and she'd almost killed it because it was an inconvenience to her. What kind of monster did that?_

After that incident, Haruka had a hard time even acknowleding that the baby existed.

She only focused on walking, one step at a time.

By the time she reached a small town north of Kusagakure, she was confused. She should have seen signs of fighting, but merchant caravans were traveling the roads as if everything was fine and they weren't fearing for their goods at all. They only had a few guards, and they seemed to be slacking off. She hadn't seen a single Iwa shinobi so far. The north of Grass country had been pretty much under their occupation before her capture, but that must have changed while she was locked up. Still, even if Konoha currently had the advantage, the civilians of Grass should be worse for wear than they appeared to be. Haruka had avoided direct contact, so she wasn't sure, but the country seemed to be _recovering._ The last time she'd been here, it'd been torn up by war.

The only way to make sense of it was to get information. Haruka put the weapon pouches at the bottom of her pack and tied up her hair in a bun. She stuck a senbon in it, so she'd have a weapon ready if it came to that. Hopefully it wouldn't.

She walked the rest of the way, heart racing a little faster than it had been a moment before. Fooling two farmers was one thing, walking into this town like she belonged was another. She needed to look and act as civilian as possible, make sure to talk with the right accent to back up her story if anyone talked to her, and be as boring as possible so nobody paid her any mind. She had done it a thousand times before but excitement still bubbled up inside her. Haruka felt more alive than she had in a long time.

The town was small and seedy, a stop on the road for many traveling merchants. It was the perfect place to find information. Conversations were bound to be full of interesting little facts and if she collected enough of them she should be able to paint a picture of what was happening across the nations.

Haruka walked through town at leisurely pace. She looked at wares in stalls, bought herself some clean clothes and took her sweet time before she took a room for the night at one of the bigger inns. She paid the innkeeper with money looted from the Iwa shinobi she'd killed. (They'd forgotten a lot of things in their haste to get to her after her escape, but they hadn't left without their wallets.)

After feeding and changing it, she left the baby in the hotel room. Taking it with her would make her stand out where she was going.

The sun was setting when she stepped into the bar. Haruka ordered a glass of sake and sat down in a booth. She wasn't a sensor, but any seasoned shinobi could feel when another shinobi was in the same room unless they were using suppression techniques. Haruka, of course, could do that without even thinking about it. She noticed several signatures around her, but her face betrayed nothing.

Haruka channeled chakra into her ears and listened. While she did that, she pretended to admire the women around her. She wasn't actually interested right now, but it was better if people thought she had a reason for being at the bar. (Women were often more interesting to look at in her opinion, while men were more likely to approach her and less likely to leave without making a scene if she didn't flirt back.)

It didn't take long before she caught her first bit of useful information. Haruka almost lost the grip around her glass when she heard it. She couldn't believe it.

The Third war was over.

It'd been over for a _year._

While Haruka had been locked up, blindfolded and tortured for information, the last battle of the war had been fought. That explained why they'd stopped trying to extract information from her after only a few weeks.

Conflicting emotions swirled around inside her. Relief and joy _because it was finally over._ Then anger took over, because for her, the war hadn't ended at all. She was still fighting and she'd fought _alone_ every day in that cell. The unfairness of it all hit her like a kunai to the heart.

Haruka realized she was losing the grip on her emotions and was just about to stand up and leave when her world was turned upside down again.

Two men sat down in the booth to her left. "Did you hear about the mess in Leaf?" one of them said.

Haruka stayed put when she heard that, curious about what was going on in her village.

His companion hunched forward, clearly intrigued. "No, I haven't really stopped anywhere since I passed the border from Lightning. But I'm heading to Fire Country next so stop looking smug and tell me what happened!"

"One of the Sannin betrayed them. That creepy snake guy, Orochimaru. Konoha tried to keep it all hush-hush when the rumors first started but apparently he kidnapped like a hundred children and did these sick experiments on them. Nobody knows if they died or if he turned them into monsters. And the worst thing is, the bastard got away! Konoha still haven't killed him, or even _found_ him. He's out there right now."

"What the hell. Wasn't he some sort of war hero?"

"Guess not. And the Leaf claims to be so _nice_ _and fair._ Makes you wonder if hiring them is safe when they have monsters like that working for them."

Haruka tuned them out after that.

They had to be lying. Orochimaru could be cold, sometimes downright scary, but that was on the battlefield. That was different. She knew he could get obsessive about his research and shut everyone out, but he'd never betray Konoha. Or would he?

Haruka sank back and took a big gulp of her sake.

Maybe he would. She'd hardly known him, not when it came down to it. There'd always been things left unsaid in every moment she'd shared with him. A comfortable silence, at first. Neither of them needed to fill up space with uneccessary words or emotions. Toward the end, she'd wanted to break that silence but she'd been afraid it would push him away.

But Orochimaru wasn't a villain. She'd admired him before she even met him and when he started paying attention to her, that admiration had only grown. He was a legend, but still saw something worthy in _her._

They'd met on a mission when she was 24.

She'd felt a closness to him at the start, once she realized how much they had in common. Their teammates during that mission had kept their distance from Orochimaru despite his legandary reputation. Haruka had realized then, that they were both looked down upon. Orochimaru was ostrascized for his demeanor and his appearance and she was a disappointment to her clan no matter what she accomplished because her cousin Mikoto was always one step ahead of her. To Konoha at large, Uchiha Haruka was invisble. Her genin teammates were long dead and her old jounin sensei rarely spoke to her after that loss. She took long infiltration missions that kept her outside the village for large stretches of time and most of them recquired her to work alone. She was nobody.

But for some reason, Orochimaru had seen her. They had clicked right away and by the end of the mission they were exchanging sarcastic jabs like they'd known each other for ages. It'd been the first time in a long time that Haruka had felt appreciated.

After that mission, Haruka had found herself assigned to the same team formations as him whenever she wasn't doing her usual solo missions. She knew instantly that it was because he'd requested her.

Falling into bed with him had happened later.

She would never go as far as saying that they'd been in love. Their banter had slowly turned more flirtatious and one day Orochimaru had found her in the village, taken her hand and propositioned her. She'd said yes. The war was going strong by then, and she'd take any form of stress relief that she could.

They'd had fun together.

That wasn't to say that it had been a flawless arrangement. He could be pensive sometimes, stuck in his lab for days at a time whenever he was on leave. Dragging him out of there was impossible on those days. But that hadn't bothered her. (His moods were nothing in comparison to the constant brooding of her fellow Uchiha.)

He never scared her, not even when he looked at her with cold, calculating eyes and she wondered what part of her he was examining (and if she came up short).

Maybe she should have been scared. If what those men were saying was true...

Alarm bells were ringing in her head.

Iwa had only kept her alive after her capture because they'd done a medical check and discovered that she was one month into a pregnancy. Two sets of Sharingan were better than one, so they locked her up with her eyes blindfolded - but still intact - and waited for the child to be born.

Haruka had no idea how she'd gotten pregnant with Orochimaru's child. They'd used protection and she'd been on birth control pills long before he seduced her, pills that had _never_ failed her before.

No. No no no no no.

Messing with her pills would have been easy for any competent shinobi. Haruka felt _safe_ in Konoha. She wasn't as guarded. While she trapped her house like everyone else, she didn't go around expecting anyone to break in. She trusted her comrades.

She had trusted Orochimaru _more_ than the rest of then.

What if he had intended to get her pregnant? What if that had been the point of seducing her to begin with?

There could only be one reason for that. The Sharingan.

Haruka finished her drink with one last sip and rushed out of the bar. Her blood was pumping, hands forming into fists before she knew it. The intensity of her anger had risen to the point where she felt like she would explode at any second - her thoughts were losing coherency and had turned into a furious _screaming,_ taking up all the space in her mind. She had to get out of there before she started a bar brawl just to get the rage out of her system.

The doors to the bar slammed shut behind her. She couldn't go back the hotel, not like this. Haruka walked through the streets until she was at the edge of town and kept going. Her furious energy needed some kind of outlet, so she broke into a run as soon as nobody was around to witness her.

She was biting her lip to keep herself from screaming and crying, the metallic taste of her blood spreading in her mouth. _That bastard._ She'd known he didn't love her, but she'd thought he _cared._ That he liked her for her. But it had all beeen a lie, a grand manipulation. All he'd wanted was her doujutsu – he wasn't any different from the Iwa bastards who'd tortured her and left her in solitary for eight months.

But somehow, what Orochimaru had done to her was worse. _He'd used her and she had fallen for it._

And now...

Haruka gave a short laugh. She'd probably been declared KIA after losing that battle and there was no reason for Orochimaru to think she was still alive. As long as he didn't find out, she would be safe from him. He wouldn't be able to steal the baby and experiment on it, or take its eyes.

When she realized what that meant for her future, her momentary glee left her only to be replaced by dread.

Orochimaru wasn't stupid, he'd be keeping tabs on Konoha after defecting. If he'd really been doing illegal experiments on children, he would have planned for the possibility of being caught. Maybe he had spies within the village - research on a bigger scale usually recquired more than one person to be involved. If even one of his co-conspirators were still in Konoha, Orochimaru would know she was alive the minute she stepped through the main gates into the village.

She couldn't go home.

If she did, she'd be putting herself and the baby in danger she couldn't hope to face on her own. And she couldn't count for the village to stand behind her.

Her clan wouldn't just be upset with her for having a child out of wedlock - her child was not just a bastard, but a _traitor's bastard -_ they'd shun her completely. She'd be stripped of her clan name and crossed out from the family records before she could say a word in her defense. Not just the Uchiha would treat her with scorn. She'd be mistrusted by the whole village. They'd be shouting "traitor" at her when she came back with Orochimaru's child in her arms.

That kind of life was unacceptable.

Haruka sat down in the middle of a field and stared out into the night, not really seeing what was there. She felt completely, utterly lost. Tears fell down her face and she stopped trying to hold them back.

But she couldn't let this defeat her. She hadn't escaped Iwa only to give up on everything. She couldn't go home, but she still had options.

Truly, there was only one thing to do.

…

Three months later, Haruka was feeling just as lost. Her plan was simple - stay alive and stay out of Konoha. That was such a loose goal she felt like she didn't really have one to begin with.

She'd traveled from Grass Country and was just arriving in Yugakure, the former hidden village in the Land of Hot Water. She'd made several stops so far on her journey to collect more information and pick up better supplies – and had been horrified at the quality of what was was available. She'd known that shinobi gear was difficult to find outside of hidden villages, but it was even worse than she'd expected.

Everything was a lot more expensive on the black market. If she'd been a weapons specialist she'd have been fucked, but luckily Haruka only needed the bare minimum. Sealing scrolls, some kunai and senbon. Haruka almost had to empty her pockets just for that. What she really wanted was shinobi-grade hair dye and make-up that wouldn't wash off as easily but the supplier she found didn't have that. She had to settle for the regular stuff and bought the rest of her camping gear at a civilian store. Despite that, she barely had enough money left to pay for it.

Missing-nin sure had it rough. No wonder that they were often maladjusted and violent.

At least Haruka didn't have a page in any bingo books. Iwa would be unwise to put her in theirs – if Konoha found out they'd kept an Uchiha as a prisoner of war with the intent of doujutsu theft, the political fallout would be overwhelming.

Haruka snorted. As far as Iwa knew, she'd been back in Konoha for a while now without the Hokage making any demands. She wondered what they made of that. No immediate retaliation usally meant something _worse_ was brewing. The Tsuchikage was probably sweating.

But her amusement was short-lived. Any line of thought that included the word _Konoha_ made her ache with a longing for home. And really, Iwa would be desperate to catch and eliminate her when they realized she hadn't gone where they expected. Not fun at all.

Despite the distance she'd put between herself and immediate danger, she didn't feel any safer. Her nightmares now featured Orochimaru more often than her time in captivity, but the change of subject hadn't made the dreams more bearable. On the opposite, they'd only grown in intensity since he started appearing in them.

Haruka entered Yugakure with a heavy heart. She had deep circles under her eyes that she hadn't bothered covering up with make-up and her legs were aching. She'd probably stay in Yugakure for a while, its famous hot springs would do her good. Haruka just hoped she'd be able to relax.

It really was a lovely city but Haruka walked past the various food stalls and fashion boutiqes, not paying much attention to her surroundings. Nothing was of interest to her in her current mood. She just wanted to sleep.

She walked past several hotel signs before she found a place that suited her. It was small and simple and hopefully had a room she could afford. Haruka stepped inside and a bell rung.

"Welcome to Nokori Inn!" the receptionist said from behind her desk. She was a pretty girl, with tan skin and long, silky brown hair that would normally make Haruka with her spiky Uchiha mess full of jealousy. Right now she was too tired to care.

Haruka walked up to the desk."I need a room for two nights," she said. Maybe she'd stay longer but that was a decision for later.

She gave the price and Haruka hid her wince when she handed over the money.

"What a cute baby!" the receptionist exclaimed. "Is it a boy or a girl? What is its name?"

Well shit. This was awkward. She hadn't even thought about naming the thing. But she had to say something or it'd be weird.

"Mori," Haruka said before thinking.

Regret filled her immediately.

The receptionist gave her an odd look. "That's...a lovely name. Here's your room key."

Haruka took it and walked up the creaking stairs to her room as fast as she could. Shit. That was embarrassing. She'd given the baby a _surname_. What the hell was the sleep depravation doing to her?

With a sigh, she locked the door behind her and walked over to the bed. She put the baby on the mattress and curled up next to it. She hadn't really _looked_ at it in a while. She hadn't noticed it growing bigger and getting tufts of black hair on its head. She carried it with her every day and tended to its basic needs but she never really registered what she was doing.

Four months had slipped by since it was born and _it hadn't even occurred to her_ that she should have named the baby until the receptionist had asked for its name. She couldn't recall if it was a boy or a girl.

 _'I really am a terrible mother.'_

And wasn't that a thought. Haruka had never wanted to be a mother at all, but that kid was hers whether she wanted it or not. They were stuck together. Being in denial about that wasn't an option, not anymore.

If she was going to spend the rest of her life protecting the kid's eyes, she should at least try to care for it as a person. Because that's what it was. A tiny, fragile person that she was responsible for. She probably wasn't the best person for the job but the least she could do was to treat it like an actual human being instead of carrying it around like unwanted luggage.

"Mori," Haruka mumbled to herself. Maybe she'd stick with that name, if only to remind herself to do better from now on.


	3. Chapter 2

Saying that the first few months of his new life were confusing would be an understatement. His surroundings were too blurry to make sense of, and he slipped in and out of sleep so often that it was almost impossible to tell the passage of time.

When he was awake, he did his best to improve his speech. It would be easier if the woman spoke to him more often so he could try to imitate her, but she was quiet most of the time. To be honest, she didn't seem to be very fond of him. He depended on her for everything, and she provided without complaint. But there was no love in it. She didn't gush over him when he made pitiful attempts at speech. She didn't play with him or tell him stories. She only paid attention to him when he needed something.

Part of him was grateful for that lack of love. The failure to connect went both ways. He never thought of her as his mother because he already had a family. If she had loved him, maybe he would have felt guilty about not loving her back. As things were, he didn't have to.

But on the other hand, it was frustrating to feel so alone and uncared for. The woman was the only constant in his life.

She was a very strange person. The first month of his new life, they crossed a mountain range. Doing that while carrying an infant could not be an easy task, and on top of that she was weak from childbirth and some sort of injury in her shoulder. But she carried on like it was nothing.

(Just watching her made him tired, but that might be because he literally had the endurance of an infant. He was always sleepy.)

The second month, they reached civilisation, but they didn't stay in that first town for long. As soon as they left, the woman set off on a journey through a forest, and they didn't stop in any other towns for another month. He was surprised that the region was so rural. All the villages and towns they passed by were small farming communities and the architecture wasn't very modern. They had some technology – radio and television – but they looked older than what he was used to. He hadn't seen a single telephone. There weren't any cars and none of the roads were asphalted.

He had no idea where in Japan they were, or if they _were in Japan at all._ He'd thought the country was more densely populated, but maybe he was wrong. It was difficult to tell with his poor eyesight anyway. If there were cities in the horizon, he couldn't see them. But it felt like the forests went on forever.

It wasn't until the fourth month in his new world that he finally learned his new name. Mori.

Huh. Wasn't that a surname?

Or maybe the woman really liked forests. The meaning of his new name was somewhat similar to his old surname, so he didn't mind. He just wished he knew _her_ name, referring to her as _the woman_ was getting old.

At least after he received his name she started interacting with him more. She actually talked to him, which motivated him to try to develop his speech and language skills. His understanding of Japanese was far from fluent, but with time he started to understand more.

The truly difficult part was articulating sounds properly. Baby babble was all he had accomplished so far, his vocal chords and facial muscles just wouldn't cooperate. So he practiced.

It was tedious, frustrating and humiliating.

Not unlike the whole experience of going through infancy with the awareness of an adult. Sometimes he really felt like he'd drawn the short straw in this whole reincarnation business. Forgetting everything would have been easier. He'd have less to grieve for, in any case.

Along the way, something must have changed. Instead of long, solitary trips through forests, the woman started making regular stops at most of the settlements they passed by. They never stayed for long, but when they went into towns, the woman talked to a lot of people. She usually left him behind in hotel rooms when she went out, but sometimes she brought him with her.

When she did, he got the feeling that she was using him as a prop to get people's sympathy or to make herself seem less threatening. Her entire demeanor changed. Suddenly, she was treating him with tenderness, cooing and gushing at him. Her voice lost its usual rough raspiness, and she changed the way she carried herself. Then, as soon as they were alone, she switched back to her usual self.

It was strange and disconcerting.

But it gave him a chance to learn more of the language, and more about his situation. Whenever he was brought with her, he listened intently. In every town she introduced herself with a different name, and she'd change their appearances with hair dye and make-up on a regular basis so they never looked exactly the same.

Mori was certain that she was hiding from someone. Nobody concealed who they were to that extent just for the fun of it. It had to be because of something bad, something truly dangerous.

Maybe when he was older she'd tell him what was going on and who she was so afraid of. Wating for answers until then was beyond frustrating, but it'd take a while before he could voice any of his questions.

…

"Sit still," the woman said as she applied concealer around his eyes. When he wriggled away again, she grabbed his cheek to hold him still.

Really, he was trying, but he didn't like having pointy things that close to his eyes. And his entire body was _itching._ It was even worse than teething, and that had not been fun at all. So far he hadn't found a way to alleviate it, but sitting still made it worse. It was probably psychosomatic, but he didn't care. _He just wanted the itching to stop, damn it._

"Dun wanna," he said.

The woman snorted. "And here I thought your first word would be something cute."

He pouted. He'd seen himself in the mirror and he was definitely a cute kid. She had no business implying that he was un-cute. That aside, he understood why the woman wanted to hide his appearance. He had strange, purple bruises around his eyes that never went away. They made him look sleep-deprived, which was a very odd look on a small child. As if that wasn't enough, his skin was deathly pale. To contrast that, his natural hair color was black. So were his eyes. He looked very distinctive and that was a bad thing for their continued survival. Make-up and hair dye were necessary.

But maybe the woman was right about his personality being the opposite of cute. Mori just didn't have it in him to act his (physical) age. He didn't play like normal children did. Instead, he observed his surroundings and did a lot of people-watching. (Or cloud-watching, when they were far way from civilization and there weren't any people around to watch. That was most of time, to his chagrin.) He never screamed or cried. As soon as he could keep himself upright instead of flopping back down on his stomach, he'd gone from crawling to walking at an alarming rate out of sheer stubborness.

And now, he was talking. Huh. That hadn't been part of the plan. He was appalled at his pronunciation, but that would come with time. If his estimations were correct, he was about seven months old, so he had plenty of it. This actually wasn't the first time he'd talked, but it was the first time he'd done so with the woman awake and aware. The only reason he hadn't talked to her until now was because he'd been embarrassed. To be honest, he still was. But it was too late to turn back.

"It-chy," he said, taking his time to pronounce the word.

"Don't be dramatic. If I stop now, you'll have one eye with make-up and one without. That would look silly."

"Not the make-up. Ev-ery-where," he clarified.

"Aa. That's perfectly normal. You're still a growing girl," the woman said.

"Boy," he corrected.

The woman let go of his cheek and furrowed her brow. "What?"

"I'm a boy," he said.

That was not debateable. It didn't matter what gender he'd been assigned at birth, he was male and pretending not to be would suck. He'd already gone through transition once in his previous life, so doing it again didn't phase him. _Not_ being transgender this time around would probably have taken longer to get used to.

Correcting her had been a knee-jerk reaction but maybe he shouldn't have done it. He had no idea what her stance on gender and sexuality was. Hopefully she would accept it, but if she didn't, he hoped his age would protect him from any backlash.

"Alright then," she said. "Now stay still so I can finish."

Wait, was that it? Maybe she wasn't taking him seriously. Because that wasn't much of a reaction.

"You bel-ieve me?"

"You're already a weird kid. What's one more thing?

She had a point.

Mori yawned. All this talking was tiring him out. He really hadn't planned to bring up gender identity the _first time he talked._ It had just sort of happened. How was this even his life?

The woman put the finishing touches on his make-up and started doing her own. He was still in her lap, so he curled up. A nap would serve him well.

But before that, he should ask her the one thing that had ben grating on him for so long.

"What is your name?"

"Haruka. But don't go around telling people that, alright? I have a secret name. I'm trusting you to keep the secret. Do you understand?"

"I do."

Haruka ruffled his hair. "Go to sleep, brat. I'll wake you when we get to town."

…

The town was a relatively small, rural community, but unlike the many similar towns they had been to, they decided to stay there for more than a few days. Because of their hot springs and their local tea, it attracted a lot of tourists. Blending in was a lot easier when people passed through all the time.

To Mori's surprise, the first thing Haruka did when they arrived was to take a job at a tea house.

She hadn't told him anything about staying permanently. So far, they had lived on the road and only stopped in towns and villages to pick up supplies (and for Haruka to do whatever she did when she left him behind in hotel rooms).

He had no idea why she was changing that pattern now. Maybe she needed money. Maybe she was getting tired of hunting squirrels for dinner.

The first night they stayed at the inn connected to the hot springs. They'd been by a small apartemt complex earlier, but the landlord didn't have time to meet them until the next day.

"While we're here, your name is Itsuki and my name is Kotone," Haruka said once the screen door slid close behind them.

"How long are we staying?"

"I haven't decided yet, but at least for a month or two. Now listen, because this is important. I'm gonna be working a lot, so other people will look after you sometimes."

Mori frowned. He hadn't really interacted with anyone but Haruka since his rebirth. Just thinking about it shouldn't make him nervous - he did have a whole other life of experience to fall back on - but it did.

"When you're around these people, you can't show them how smart you are," Haruka continued.

"So no talking?" he asked. He was pretty sure children his age had started saying their first words, but he'd moved on to short sentences within _minutes_. That development was probably too quick, but he'd been too impatient to hold himself back.

"Exactly. And if there are other kids, play with them and try to imitate what they are doing."

Well shit. That didn't sound very fun. Maybe living at a campsite in the forest wasn't so bad, if _that_ was the alternative.

"Do I have to?" he asked, even if he already knew the answer. Of course he had to. If he didn't, he'd stand out too much and Haruka wouldn't be able to keep them under the radar.

"Yes. I know it sounds boring, but it's like what I do. Dressing differently and changing your hair won't mean anything if you can't act like a different person. Sometimes I pretend that I'm less knowledgable too. If people underestimate you, you can get away with a lot. For example, if the adults watching you think that you don't understand them, they'll talk about things they wouldn't otherwise. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Do you want me to _spy_ on them for you?"

It certainly sounded that way, but Mori didn't understand why. He could see the point of avoiding attention, but this sounded a lot more like information gathering. Surely, the townspeople weren't interesting enough to warrant that.

Haruka smiled at him. "Not this time, kiddo. But you know what? We can make this into a game. Every night, I want you to tell me one thing you've learned from listening to the people around you. It can be about anything. How does that sound?"

"Okay," he said.

At least it would give him something to do. And there was something about pretending to be a spy that genuinely excited him. Maybe Haruka felt that same spark every time she introduced herself with a new name.

Damn, he hoped she wouldn't turn him into a consumnate liar.

They moved into a tiny two-room apartment the next day, and after settling in, Haruka left him behind for a nap while she went to the market. (He wasn't even a year old, okay? Babies slept _a lot._ )

She started work the day after that. On the way to the tea house, Haruka dropped him off with a housewife she'd met at the market and somehow recruited as her baby-sitter.

"Be good, Itsuki-chan," she said and kissed his forehead. It was the first time she'd ever done that. She usually only showed affection through patting his head and ruffling his hair.

Haruka had definitely made hanging out with a bunch of kids sound more interesting than it actually was.

The housewife's name was Noriko, and she had two children called Takahiro and Aina. Takahiro was only a few months older than Mori, and mostly crawled or toddled around and drooled on things. Aina was two years old and acted like she was the boss of everyone.

She pulled his hair. She stole her brother's crayons and ruined his pictures. When poor Noriko didn't let her do whatever she wanted, she threw tantrum after tantrum.

It wasn't exactly the sort of behaviour that Mori wanted to emulate.

Thankfully, Takahiro was much calmer and not at all interested in pulling Mori's hair. (He wanted to smack away Aina's grubby little hands when she did it, but he was scared that he would hurt her. So instead, he copied Takahiro's reaction and wailed. It felt degrading, but it caught Noriko's attention so she could stop her menace of a daughter.)

"Did you learn anything today?" Haruka asked, once she'd picked him up from Noriko's house and carried him back to the apartment.

"Kids are annoying," Mori muttered.

Haruka snorted and shook her head. "You don't say."

She made rice and steamed vegetables for dinner, while Mori sat around and did nothing. Being a baby was boring. Finding a source of entertainment wasn't exactly easy when he was so limited. His fine motor control was terrible, so the drawings he had worked on during the day were almost as bad as Takahiro's. It was frustrating as hell. He couldn't even read yet.

Maybe he should rectify that. Obviously, he couldn't work on it when Noriko watched him, but Haruka might teach him if he asked.

So he did.

"Sure, I'll teach you," she said. "Getting an early start will make it easier for you later on. I'll get you some picture books to start with tomorrow after work."

…

When Mori's first birthday came around, he could read hiragana without too much trouble and had gotten started on kanji. Writing, on the other hand, was where things got difficult. His chubby hands were incapable of creating anything but squiggly and blotchy lines. The characters were barely recognizable.

But at least he could read. So far, Haruka had only supplied him with children's books, but they were interesting enough and anything more advanced would probably be too challenging. For some reason, almost all of them were about ninja. Either Haruka was obsessed - and considering the fact that she was currently living under a fake name and thought spying on people was a suitable activity for small children, that was more than likely - or it was a current trend with children's books. The books were silly, but entertaining.

Mori was currently attempting to draw a classic ninja with a mask and katana, because Noriko had suggested that he should draw something for his mother. Takahiro was working next to him, tongue sticking out of his mouth in concentration. He was drawing an interesting red squiqqle. (Maybe it was a dog? Mori couldn't tell.) Aina had gone on a play-date with another child her age, so it was only the two of them and Noriko.

"I heard that it's your birthday tomorrow Itsuki-kun," Noriko said.

Mori looked up from his drawing with a huge grin on his lips. "Okaa-san make cake!" he said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster up.

"I'm sure Kotone-san will make a very tasty cake," Noriko agreed.

"Cake!" Takahiro yelled. His stomach rumbled loudly. "Wanna cake now!"

"Tomorrow, Taka-kun. But it's almost lunch time. Keep working on those drawings while I get the food ready," Noriko said. She disappeared into the kitchen.

Without his mother there to give him attention, Takahiro turned to his friend. He abandoned his own drawing and crawled closer to Mori, bumping into his shoulder when he sat down. Mori suppressed a sigh. He'd reacted quickly enough to lift the crayon from the paper so the push didn't make him ruin the drawing. Not that it was any good, but his hand-to-eye coordination was slowly improving. So was his eye-sight. In this life, he wouldn't be needing glasses.

"Whatcha drawin?" Takahiro said.

"A ninja."

"I wanna be a ninja!" Takahiro proclaimed and in his excitement, bumped into Mori again.

"Aa," Mori said and turned back to his drawing. "Ninja are cool."

Takahiko started babbling about his future career and how awesome it would be. Mori tuned him out.

Making conversation with a one-year-old wasn't very engaging. He'd decided to act the part of a somewhat shy child because that made it easier to hide his more advanced speech from Noriko, but also because interacting with Takahiro and Aina was awkward. Staying on the sidelines didn't take as much effort and made him less likely to stumble in his act.

After three months, he'd gotten used to being around other kids, but no matter how well he could fake being just like them, it would always be frustrating to be forced to spend time with toddlers when he had more in common with their parents intellectually.

He'd love to borrow Noriko's romance novels and poetry collections. She held weekly book club meetings with a few other women at her house and every time they met up and discussed the books, Mori wished he could participate too. It had to be more interesting than playing with building blocks with Takahiro.

At least listening in on them provided him with plenty of information for Haruka's game. They gossiped a lot. Mori knew more about the state of the neighbors' marriages than he wanted to.

Haruka only had a short shift at the tea house that day, so an hour after lunch she picked him up from Noriko's.

"Thank you for taking care of Itsuki, Noriko-san. I don't know what I would do without you," she said.

"Oh, it's not a problem. Itsuki-kun is such a well-behaved boy."

"I'm glad he's not causing any trouble. We'll see you tomorrow for the birthday party?" Haruka asked.

"Of course. It's a big day," Noriko smiled.

"Bye Issu!" Takahiro said.

Mori waved goodbye, and they started walking back to the apartment. Noriko lived on the opposite side of the small town, but it only took about fifteen minutes to walk home. Haruka carried him the last half of the way. After lunch, he'd played ninja (which was pretty much tag combined with hide-and-seek) with Takahiro and it had tired him out.

She set him down on the floor once they were inside, and Mori walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out a book. He sat down on a pillow on the floor and started reading.

(This book too, was about ninja. Haruka was definitely obsessed. Next time she went to the bookstore, he should go with her so he could pick out his own books.)

"We're leaving town a few days after your birthday," Haruka said, interrupting his reading.

"Why?" Mori asked. He didn't exactly mind, but he'd gotten used to the routine here and he saw no reason to leave.

"Maa, I'm getting tired of this place," Haruka smiled.

"No other reason?"

"I always have plenty of reasons for the decisions I make."

"That's not an answer," Mori said, groaning internally.

"It's the only one you'll get today," Haruka said.

She sat down on the couch with a book of her own, but she seemed unfocused. The pages didn't turn at her normal pace. Mori sighed. If only she would _talk_ to him. He wanted to know the mystery behind her actions. Who was she, really? What kind of person had to live like she did, always on the run, lying to everyone around her? Who was she running from?

He deserved to know. It was his life too.

"Don't look at me like that," she said when she noticed that he was watching her. There was a harshness to her eyes that he'd never seen before. Every instinct told him to look away, but he kept his glare firm and steady.

"Fine. Be angry. I don't owe you _shit._ You have no idea what I've gone through to get this far, how much I've had to sacrifice – _"_ Haruka slammed her book shut.

Mori flinched at the sound. He should have looked away when she told him to. If he'd known it would make her that angry...well he hadn't known. Haruka could be distant, even downright cold. But she was never angry. Or if she was, she had kept it from him. He already knew she was a liar, but for some reason he'd thought that she was herself when it was only the two of them.

"Fuck," she said.

She stood up and paced back and forth, and took deep, shuddering breaths that seemed to do nothing to calm her down. Mori stared down at his book, but he was too anxious to make sense of the symbols on the page. He wished the words were written in his own language, so he could have something familiar to ground him.

What had he done wrong? Haruka had been fine in one moment, evading his questions with a smug face. He'd only glared at her. Her reaction made no sense at all.

When he looked up again, Haruka was gone.

Mori was already on the verge of panic, but now his heart was racing and fear was clogging his throat until he wished he could just throw up so it would go away. Was she leaving him behind? He knew she'd never loved him, but he'd fooled himself into thinking that she at least _cared_. Unlike those first few months of his life, she talked to him. She taught him things.

 _'She said we were leaving town. Maybe I pissed her off so much that she decided I wasn't worth taking with her.'_

No, he was overreacting. If she was gone for good, she wouldn't have left without a bag. He checked the bedroom, and to his relief her things were still there. The camping gear was there too, in a backpack shoved into the back of the linen closet.

Mori noticed that he was on the brink of hyperventilating and focused on his breathing – _inhale for four seconds, hold it, exhale for seven seconds_ – but it took a while for him to calm down.

He considered running after her, but he hadn't even noticed when she left. Haruka could be anywhere by now. Finding her would be impossible. No, it was better if he stayed. He climbed up on the couch and forced himself to read his book. Without a distraction, his anxiety would only get worse.

Haruka came back hours later, covered in sweat but much calmer.

"I'm sorry," she said, once the door shut behind her. "You didn't deserve that. Sometimes I forget that you're just a kid, but that's no excuse. I shouldn't have yelled, and I shouldn't have ran and left you alone like that."

"It's alright," Mori said. He was just relieved that she was back, and happily surprised that she was actually owning up to her mistake. It was the decent thing to do, but that didn't make it easy.

Most adults didn't bother apologizing to little kids, either.

She walked up to him and ruffled his hair. "You're way too forgiving, Mori-chan. Not like that person at all," she said solemnly, voice almost fading to a whisper at the end of it. Was that regret on her face? With Haruka, it was always difficult to tell.

"What person?

"I'll tell you when you're older. Ugh, I probably smell horrible. I'm gonna take a shower."

"Hey! That's not fair," Mori said. Why did she always have to evade at the last moment when he thought she was fnally explaining things?

"Never said I was fair," Haruka snorted. At least her mood was improving. He'd ask her again later, and maybe, just maybe, she would give him more than a few hints.

 _'Or maybe I can trick her into giving those hints more often. It might be the only way to puzzle this together.'_

He listened to the spray of the shower, and closed his eyes. Maybe he could figure it out, but it was almost midnight and he was exhausted. Sleep. Sleep would fix that. Mori curled up in a corner of the couch. He'd think about everything later.

…

They left four days after his birthday.

"Where are we going?" Mori asked. Haruka was carrying him in a sling. All their belongings were in a huge backpack. They'd left a lot behind, but that was okay. Mori had finished all his books anyway.

"To a forest in the middle of nowhere," Haruka said.

"Really? That sounds boring."

"Trust me brat, it won't be. I have a lot planned for us."

"Hn."

"When you do that, you sound just like these annoying people I used to know," Haruka sighed.

"You have friends?"

"I didn't say they were my friends. But they weren't enemies either, so you're not completely wrong."

"Where are they now?"

"Somewhere I can't go. But that's okay, because they're annoying and I don't want to see them. Now stop asking questions. I'm gonna run for a while, and I doubt you want to get any insects in your mouth."

Mori shuddered at the thought. "That's disgusting."

"Exactly. Now be quiet."

And then she leapt into motion. When Haruka had said that she was going to run, he hadn't expected her to run so _fast._ He had to close his eyes to keep them from watering.

' _What the hell? Is she even human, because this speed is unnatural. If she drops me I'm going to die. Again.'_

She didn't stop for _hours._ When she finally did, she was winded, but who wouldn't be? Mori was still holding on to his super-human theory. Nobody should be able to do that. He knew she'd been working out – the defined muscles on her body spoke for themselves – but this was beyond that.

"Ugh, I'm so out of shape," Haruka muttered.

 _What._ She had to be joking.

"How do you run so fast?" Mori asked.

"You call this fast? Maa, you should have seen me a few years ago."

Mori glared at her. "But _how_?"

"Lots and lots of exercise," Haruka said. She set him down on the ground and took out a water bottle. "Let's walk for a bit. I'm not giving you a ride the whole way."

After a week of travel, they reached their destination. As Haruka had said, it was a forest in the middle of nowhere. She still hadn't told Mori what exactly they were doing there, but he figured he'd find out soon enough. They set up camp for the night, and Haruka took him through the steps of building a smokeless fire.

"You should go to bed now," Haruka said once they'd had dinner. It was getting dark, and the autumn air sent shivers down Mori's spine despite the warmth from the fire. "I'm going to set up some traps around the camp, so don't run off. I'll show you were they are tomorrow."

Mori nodded and crawled into the tent. Even if he'd been carried most of the way, traveling had tired him out.

Haruka woke him up early the next morning. Mori groaned and pulled the blanket closer around him. "Get up," Haruka said. When he didn't, she simply grabbed him and carried him away from his bedroll. She set him down outside the tent.

"Give me the blanket," she said. He was still clutching it to his chest and she hadn't been able to pry it from his grip without hurting him in the process.

"No."

"Don't be a brat."

Mori pouted, but he handed her the blanket. She threw it back into the tent. He was pissed off, but throwing a tantrum like a child would be embarrassing. The fact that, physically, he i _was/i_ a child didn't matter.

"Good. Now let's get started," Haruka said.

"With what?" Mori grumbled. He was too tired to hide the anger from his voice, despite his previous resolve not to act like a brat.

"Training. We'll start with some stretches, just copy what I'm doing."

She brought him through a series of stretches that lasted for almost half an hour. They reminded him a lot of yoga. But it was more difficult than it should be, he kept losing his balance and his coordination was terrible. Haruka corrected his mistakes, and he made a lot of them. But she was patient with him.

After that, they ran laps around the camp, and Haruka showed him where the traps were on the way. It took three laps for him to reach his limit. "I guess that's enough for now," Haruka concluded. "Don't worry, it'll get easier with time."

Somehow, Mori doubted that.

They ate breakfast in silence. Afterward, Haruka threw him an empty scroll (he had no idea how that had fit into their pack, the thing was _huge_ ) and told him to practice his kanji while she did "real exercise" as if what they had already done didn't count. For someone like Haruka, it probably didn't.

Haruka told him she'd do her training at a stream east of their camp. Once she'd left, Mori crawled back into the tent with his scroll and started practicing his kanji. But after a few hours, he got bored and decided to take a nap.

It was almost noon when Haruka finally returned. By then, Mori had already woken from his slumber, so she didn't catch him slacking off. She'd caught a large fish for lunch and they cooked it over the fire.

"So you've probably figured out why we're here," Haruka said.

"For training," Mori guessed.

"Yeah. We would've drawn too much attention if we did this in town. You know how much they gossip. I could get away with doing some physical conditioning, but not much else. And it was about time to get your training started. You're too young to do anything truly strenous but you need to get the basics down as fast as possible," Haruka said.

"Aa. The basics of what?"

"I'm going to teach you how to run as fast as me, how to fight, how to stay hidden. You've already gotten started on infiltration, but we're going to work more on that later. We'll keep up the academics too, now that you can read. But most importantly, I'm going to teach you how to use your chakra."

 _What._

 _Chakra?_ What the hell? Mori gave her a blank stare. He'd been prepared for the rest, because even if it was messed up to train her kid into a spy, it made sense considering her lifestyle. But chakra? That wasn't real.

He said as much, and Haruka sighed. "Are you still experiencing that itching you've complained about?"

He was. But in the last few weeks it had lessened to the point where it barely bothered him at all. But he didn't see how that related to chakra.

"Not as much. But that's just growing pains, right?" he said.

"Yeah, you could say that. Your chakra pathways are still developing, but if the itching is getting better they should have stabilized enough to start control exercises. But first, you have to learn how to sense your own chakra."

"You've got to be kidding me," Mori said.

The way she had described chakra was reminding him of something he'd read in his previous life...but no. That was ridiculous. There had been no mentions of chakra _itching_ in that, anyway. His brain was just making weird connections because the concepts were similar.

Not that it mattered, because chakra wasn't real.

"You want proof?" Haruka said. She was starting to look a bit exasperated.

Mori nodded.

Haruka stood up and brought her hands together in front of her. She flipped through a series of hand signs that was too quick for him to follow, and suddenly there was a copy of Haruka standing next to her.

"Happy now?" Both Harukas grinned.

No.

He was not happy at all.

Reincarnation was one thing, but this...this was too much. It couldn't be real. His brain was going hay-wire, making connections out of things that up until now had seemed odd but unrelated. He'd _known_ that the world around him was different from his old one. But he'd shrugged it off. _Why had he done that?_

Mori stared down at his hands. They looked so real.

 _'If I'm real, then all of this is real too. I've been here for over a year. If it was a dream, it should have ended by now.'_

All he could feel was a profound sense of loss. He tried to force his lips to stop quivering. Tears were already running down his cheeks and he felt a pressure building in his chest.

 _'This shouldn't be worse than what I've already lost.'_

But it was. His world was gone and he was stuck in a place that only moments ago, he'd considered to be _fictional_. The whole situation was absurd.

Mori laughed. He laughed until he could barely breathe, until he was a wheezing, sobbing mess. Until he felt like he was _dying._ He hadn't even finished reading the Naruto manga. He'd been in the middle of catching up on it, since the series had ended recently. But then he'd died. Of all the fictional universes to get stuck in, he'd ended up in the one where he _didn't_ know every detail.

It felt like some sort of cosmic joke.

He looked up and was once again met by the sight of Haruka and her clone. Their mouths were slightly opened, noses scrunched up in confusion. She'd probably thought he'd be amazed, not have a complete breakdown.

Mori was past the point of caring about that. Nothing made sense anymore, and it was her fault. She'd been the one to turn his understanding of the universe on its head with her display of power.

 _'At least I'll get to learn cool ninja magic.'_

That did nothing to cheer him up. The powers may be cool, but shinobi life involved a lot of killing and figthing. Mori didn't want any part in that, thank you very much. But Haruka was probably going to force the issue.

Damn, he probably _needed_ to become a somewhat proficient shinobi if he wanted to survive. Whoever was after Haruka was bound to be dangerous and if they ever caught up to her, he would be dead weight if he couldn't defend himself.

By the time he stopped crying, Mori felt completely numb. He was so screwed.


End file.
